How does the election system work?

HCOL ballots are secure. Each ballot may only be cast once and may not be altered after being cast. Responses are anonymous.

HCOL is a third party system and results cannot be manipulated by the club or the election management.

Most club’s governing documents (bylaws) are silent on how election ballots are to be cast and typically leave the election methodologies to the Secretary.

Clubs have reported that HCOL online voting has greater club participation versus in-person or mailed ballots.

The following are basics of the HamClubOnline election system:

The elections system can be used to vote on people or things.

HCOL refers to people as candidates and things as propositions.

There may be up to 12 candidates per ballot item.

There may be up to 12 responses to a proposition per ballot item.

There may be up to 50 ballot items per election campaign.

Write-in and abstain capabilities are set per ballot item.

Elections are first created and managed in the Manage Elections module from the club menu. The following options are available per election:

Election Management may be available to all rank 2 and rank 3 members or locked to the member who created the election campaign.

Election Results may be only shown to those who can manage the election, shown to everyone after the campaign is over, or to all members always.

The election closing time will stop the election at that time and no ballots may be cast after the election has been closed.

After everything is ready to go, you may officially start the election campaign. The election system will immediately e-mail ballots to all eligible club members. Revisiting the campaign during the election, management may see who received a ballot and who has not yet cast that ballot. The option to resend uncast ballots is available on this screen as well.

There are a few global configuration options for election eligibility available in the Club Configuration module for rank 3 members. These eligibility options are:

How long does someone need to be a club member to be eligible to vote in elections? (0=immediately)

How long does someone need to be a club member to be eligible to run for an election position? (0=immediately)

Also, club ranks that are rank 0 are considered non-voting members of the club and will not receive a ballot.